As noted in this blog post (Eggs and Bacon for Breakfast; Gay Sex for Lunch) there are 325,000 professionals that argue that homosexuality is an immutable trait, and only 38 (37 if you consider George Rekers down for the count after his European vacation with a Rentboy.com escort) that argue that homosexuality is a choice.
As illustrated by the following Facebook wall post thread that followed my "Eggs and Bacon" link, arguing about whether homosexuality is a choice is an enormous distraction in the struggle for equal rights.
DEVIN: Having been in a similar situation to Lester, I will second his voice. How do I know that it wasn't a choice? Because when a girl would put her hand on mine it caused me anxiety. When a girl would hug me I would pull away because the thought of her kissing me was not a good feeling. I didn't control this... these were uncontrollable urges - reactions that reflected my core person. Intimacy with a woman required a choice. Intimacy with a man is perfectly natural and the way that my body is designed. It is not about choice for me.
JOHN: Choosing in this context really means "forcing oneself" to do something contrary to one's natural feelings. Sure, one can choose to go against one's instincts/orientation/nature but this doesn't mean the nature/orientation/instincts were chosen in the least.
DEVIN: I was expected to marry a woman, and so I did. I had to choose to be something that I wasn't. And, it brought a lot of pain for everyone involved. Things are much better now that I can live authentically.
JOHN: I share the same sentiments. I know I had no choice because I tried to choose otherwise but my nature never did change. For choice to mean anything, one has to have power to make it, otherwise, it's a whim or vain ambition.
There are limits to conditioning the brain against it's innate programming or reflexes. I tested them. Just as one cannot stop their heartbeat voluntarily by thought, neither can I or anyone else change their sexual orientation/kundalini. To make a gay person straight would essentially destroy their personality and who they grew up to be. Not even the best yogi can do it.
FLO: It is infuriating to this Kinsey 0 (that means Straight, Straight, Straight to some of your obviously non-science-reading commenters) woman that an adult man, clearly brilliant and accomplished at that, has to read the kind of hogwash on his FB wall as he describes in this blog.
To Lester's holier-than-thou commenters who have the hubris to assume what 'god' wants because they've been spoonfed garbage from an early age by individuals who were spoonfed garbage at an early age themselves, "Get off your judgemental high horses, grow up and smell the coffee in 2010!"
Which day was it that you decided to be heterosexual?!
And where do you come off judging this fine gentleman I just met?
You are clinging to ancient ignorance, sexual prudery, arrogance, petty cruelty, and fear that you know in your hearts that your house of cards is falling down forever.
Jealous any that Lester has found love? Loveless marriage, anyone?
Sorry, Lester. I hope you peeked at my 'info' to know what was coming before friending me; but I do not suffer bigoted fools gladly.
LESTER: Flo, I just read one post from you and it was enough to know we were kin...albeit I'm Kinsey 6 (thus I have no memory of an emotional attachment or desire for women). Thank you for your strong and unequivacal support.
Devin, allow me to introduce you to John, who was a member of my Elder's quorum in Houston. John was married and has a daughter. John, meet Devin, my gay cousin that I met online. Devin and his wife tried what my ex-wife and I tried...to be a mixed orientation marriage. They hung on much longer than we did, but the inevitable prevailed. Why would (or "should") a woman be expected to stay in a relationship with a man when it is obvious to EVERY person that knows them as a couple that the gay husband is forming emotional attachments to his male friends that his wife will never obtain from him? It is demeaning and worse than torture.
MICKEY: And may I add, that I am 54 years of age and I have NEVER had sex with a woman.
The idea is (sorry ladies, I don't mean to offend) repulsive to me. It always has been. I expect it is as repulsive to me as it is for a straight man to think of having sex with another man. Would you say that is a choice? We don't (usually) "chose" to do things that we find emotionally and physically repulsive.
Not only that, but I have never been aroused by a woman...EVER! My body, my chemistry and my soul is naturally tuned to males. End of story! It has never been about a choice for me other than the choice not to lie and hide that I am gay.
I am not faulting Lester or Devin, but I am thankful that I did not allow the pressure (or that I escaped the pressure) to conform. I am so sorry that they have to carry the burden of affecting their ex-wives lives.
Religion of all kinds perpetrates this insistence of heterosexuality and to the detriment and injury of so many people.
To all my lady friends... I love you all as my friends and family. Please don't take personally what I have said. I think I needed to use language that strong to make my point. I apologize if I offend anyone.
LESTER: And John, Mickey also recognizes that you, too, were married, and I am not familiar with whether you fully intended to keep your marriage intact while at the same time searching for an authentic life as a gay man that did not seek sexual intimacy with men. This is what Devin and I tried to do, and failed. This is what Mickey is referring to.
MICKEY: John, Lester is right. I didn't include you because I don't really know all your story as far as when you came out and if you tried to stay with your wife. I will say I understand the eminent pressure you were under to "act normal" and pretend to be straight to preserve your standing in the community and in your family. People who pass judgement on us have no way of knowing the personal hell they put us through.
JOHN: Thanks Lester. Nice to meet you Devin. I came out at 35 to others but I knew roughly at age 12 or 13 and had inklings even at 9. I had some parental pressures that were extraordinary even in a Mormon context. My parents were somewhat radical/fundamentalist. My father was born in 1916, a disciplinarian/spare the rod - spoil the child type and my mother was a pious zealous martyr-complexed saint. To give you an idea of my family, they all claim to have visions. Some claimed to have seen a Heavenly Great-Great-Grandfather and had third and fourth callings-and-elections-made-sure [which is to say, God told them personally that they were guaranteed a spot in the Celestial Kingdom]. It was nuttier than most. (Did I mention my sister sealed Michael Jackson to herself in the Manti temple? or so she says.) Trailer-trash Mormons can be some of the strangest people even for another Mormon. I'm glad to be a somewhat normal-but-still-neurotic gay man. Basically, I grew up on 995 S. State Street, Lot #31, in downtown Salt Lake City in the 70's.
Re: Lester's question. I tried to keep the marriage intact and stay pure and then realized it was pointless after therapy and went for a divorce. I realized a lot of things at that time. I figured if I was going to be gay, I would be looking for a long term relationship. I wanted to stop the casual down-low, one-time, flakey, oral sex encounters and commit to someone and explore all of gay sexuality with this one person. I realized if I was going to have an LTR, I would have to be available (i.e. not tied) to someone else.
FLO: I am so sad hearing the tortures some of you men have put yourselves through in the past to try to conform to repressive religious dogma; but uplifted by your strength as each in his own time and way broke free. It is humbling.
I was born with no belief in any god and have never seen any evidence to change my view. Even luckier, no oppressive religious dogma of any consequence came with the totally secular judaism to which I was moderately exposed. My parents were closet atheists/I was out. And they instilled in me social justice at a very early age.
To Mickey: no offense here, LOL!
I understand completely. Why in the hell 'would' a gay man have an iota of desire for a woman?
My most intimate friend is a now happily married (unfortunately not 'legally' yet) Kinsey 6 man. As a straight woman, we had exactly the same experience in our 20's; many years before we met. Single and with no religious guilts, each of us were, according to our natures, experienced with men. Each of us, at one point, had the opportunity to 'party' in a threesome: with a man and a woman. Each of us experienced anxiety and loss of desire when expected to interact with a woman. I remember clearly how I just could not kiss or caress the other gal, ruining the experience for everyone. My friend described his feeling at expecting to perform with a woman as if a huge red stop light in his body said 'STOP! NO!"
I don't understand how people do not understand this. Actually, I think they could if they tried ~ it's not very difficult. But the chains of religious and social dogmas, the security of being a cowardly sheep among the flock they grew up with, and cowardly fear of 'difference,' keep them bigots.
And the world will pass them by.
JOHN: maybe for the record since I forgot to mention it (I meant to). I'm a Kinsey 6 as well. (It would take a huge amount of booze to get me to think otherwise).
MICKEY: Well... I am a Kinsey 6 squared! There is not enough of anything to make me deviate away from men! A gay without a woman is like a fish without a bicycle!
LESTER: I saw Kermit ride a bike while singing, "Why are there so many, songs about rainbows," once. If a frog can ride a bike, then...
I love your metaphor, Mickey!
MICKEY: LOL! Thank you, honey!
GENIA: Wow. Just wow. Lester, I don't think the "choice" argument gets us anywhere. IMO, it doesn't matter if it's a choice. That's a moot point. Even if it was a choice, I still have the right to make it - and, I should still be treated as a full and equal citizen.
JOHN: While I now understand that, most people I know would not.
If I could choose, I probably would, knowing what I know now, but I don't think I would have ever made it to this point if I had been successful in changing myself. It's a big deal to most people. People who believe it's not a choice are less likely to discriminate. After all, they will think "it may be tasteless to me but they can't help it." Further, I want the same respect given to people based on all genetic attributes like disabilities, being born with down syndrome, autism and so on. I don't always have to buy into the choices people make, like which religion they attend to, but I do have to respect them as people.
MICKEY: Genia, From a Civil Rights standpoint, you are very right. But when you are dealing with church dogma and especially groups like LDS, choice becomes a key factor in heaven and hell if you believe in such things. They do. It is a matter of being made in God's image as a gay man just as much as straights are made in the same image, and that sexuality is an imposition man has placed on man. In that context "choice" has everything to do with it to us.
LESTER: The "choice" argument is critical when talking with churches that support ex-gay therapy. As long as they can hold onto the idea that a gay can be "cured," then their literal interpretation of the Bible is allowed to stand.
Genia, you have to understand that for the Mormon Church, and others that are equally anchored on the idea of infallible scripture and authority, the idea of homosexuality being a choice is like a keystone of their religion.
If they "give up" on the idea that a person can be born gay, it isn't like just, "Okay, so the gays can get married now." It is like removing the keystone from an arch of an old-world cathedral.
What it means is that their entire belief system has just collapsed. The very existence of Mormonism is dependent upon their prophet and their scripture never being wrong.
The Mormons found an "out" in 1978 when the "liberal" Jimmy Carter administration put enormous pressure on the church by threatening the tax-exempt status through the IRS. It was an issue over the LDS not ordaining Blacks to the priesthood. There were also several state-level civil rights lawsuits pending at the time. The Mormon prophet saved face by stating that, "Because of the tremendous faith of Negro and Mulatto saints, the Lord has provided a revelation that this is the fullness of times and the Blacks will now be allowed full fellowship in the church." (paraphrased)
The problem is that with gays, the "tremendous faith" argument won't fly. It is the moral equivalent of receiving a revelation that adultery is now going to be acceptable in the Lord's eyes.
No, "choice" over homosexuality is going to be the last nail in the coffin. From a civil rights perspective, it doesn't matter a bit to the churches what we have the freedom to "choose," but from a religious perspective, if we can successfully argue that we do NOT choose our sexual orientation, THAT is the ONLY THING THAT DOES MATTER!
GENIA: Lester: I understand your argument. And for a long time, I agreed with you. If we could just convince "the church" that homosexuality isn't a choice, then we can win the battle with them. But seriously, they don't care either way. Even if they believed that people were born gay, they'd still insist that we can be changed by the power of prayer. For me, arguing "choice" with them gives them so much power. It validates their ability to meddle in the lives of others. It also validates their existence in the gay rights struggle. By acknowledging THEIR belief that homosexuality is NOT a choice (and constantly arguing with them about it), we are allowing them to remain a part of the gay rights struggle.
I'd rather just say, "Listen, it really doesn't matter if homosexuality is a choice. This is my life and only I have the right to decide what I will do with it - as God intended when He gave us free will." From there, they have to argue about free will and it becomes a much more challenging battle for them.
LESTER: Genia, you won me over. You are right, and that is exactly what will be decided by Judge Vaughn Walker in the Prop 8 decision in California. In that regard, in the "separation of church and state" decision, you are absolutely right.
You have actually helped my articulate myself better. I am on two crusades here.
The one is about our adult choices to live our lives the way we want to, but the other is about gay teens under the influence of their parents, and thus their backward religious beliefs. These are the kids that end up homeless and emotionally scarred. Many will attempt suicide, and some will succeed.
To them, the message has to be that they are not defective. They need to know that they will never overcome this "temptation" that makes them feel inadequate and weak. The message needs to be out there in every public place possible, including schools, that homosexuality is immutable, and that the religions operating on a literal interpretation of scripture are wrong...that they are all failed belief systems.
And you are right. That campaign, the second one, is not about civil rights and equality at all. It is about bigotry, founded and entrenched in religion.
1 comments:
The whole "choice" issue is indeed a distraction. It is simply not the case that American law only provides civil rights protections for immutable characteristics. The 1964 Civil Rights Act includes religious belief as a protected category, and, while many persons may not feel that they have any choice in the matter, in fact, adults in the U.S. are as free as one can be to choose their religion, or no religion.
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